Rock 'n Roll
by Elizabeth Johnstone
Critics disagree about many things concerning Tom Stoppard's latest work, a piece called Rock 'n Roll, which recently arrived from London. Is he writing about Czechoslovakia or England? Is the play his regretful "what if..." scenario? After actually seeing the play in all its cinematic glory, I've come to a few conclusions of my own.
The main character of Jan, played by Rufus Sewell (you might recognize him as the tight-wearing villain from A Knight's Tale), is attending Cambridge when he is called back to his homeland of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to save both his mother and socialism. He takes with him only his beloved records. Stoppard, who was born in Czechoslovakia but describes himself as fundamentally English, has admitted that perhaps Jan is a sort of shadow character, for he himself returned to the country of his birth in 1948- but did not stay. Jan stays, and ironically, it is (at least on the surface) his love of music and not politics that gets him into trouble.
Stoppard seems to have loved the sixties as much as anyone else alive at the time did. The sense of nostalgia is, for me, almost as large as a physical presence on stage. The playwright loves rock 'n roll and identifies with bands like the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones and singers like Bob Dylan and the now reclusive Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. The entire play, as it time-travels from 1968 to 1989, is moved forward by music, because there used to be a time when music shaped generations. It also points to a time when music actually enriched and informed instead of simply entertained— I doubt any of us would be the same if our parents hadn't listened to the Grateful Dead or John Lennon. And for all I enjoyed the brilliant snippets between scenes, it made me a little sad. After all, who wouldn't be depressed when we're relying on music from Miley Cyrus and her teenybopper alter-ego to define our generation? It's actually horrifying.
In the interest of full disclosure, a few friends that I attended the play with fell asleep during the first twenty minutes of the production. I asked one of them at intermission what she thought, and she replied that she found the dialogue pretentious— which was funny, coming from a Columbia student. I can understand her point-the dialogue is at times extremely intellectual (there's diatribes on the Greek poetry of Sappho as well as theories on brain function), and if you don't know anything about the Czech revolution, forget it. Take a nap and wake up when the first Rolling Stones song plays. But it is worthwhile to notice that the characters are on the pretentious side, and speak accordingly.
It's also worth a mention that Stoppard really loves them. Like, really really. They're not perfect characters, but he coddles their imperfections and allows them, for the most part, to live out their funny little faux-Utopias from the safety of Cambridge. Professor Max Morrow (Brian Cox) is an aging Communist of the old regime who refuses to admit the failure of the Bolshevik Revolution. Max also happens to be Jan's mentor, even though they disagree. After the Soviet Union invades the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (when the play begins), it eliminated liberal policies like freedom of information and transparency within the government and returned the country to a suppressive form of Communism. Jan unwittingly gets involved in the fight against the oppressive new regime through his devotion to a (real) Czech rock band called, interestingly, the Plastic People of the Universe. Like I said, the play assumes that the audience has a lot of prior knowledge, but for the confused, there’s a handy-dandy playbill insert that outlines the main historical points.
Now is probably a good time to say that I truly enjoyed Rock 'n Roll. It was probably the most fun I've had the theater in awhile, even though it ran a little long, and inspired good after-hours discussion at an all-night diner. Not bad for something on Broadway— I tend to stay away from expensive blockbuster productions. Disclaimer, though, I'm a huge fan of Stoppard himself—I find him funny and intellectually stimulating in way that few playwrights can imitate, and even simply reading his works are a pleasure. Though this play isn't exactly cut from the same cloth as classics like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead or even Arcadia, the somewhat cliché of a happy ending was exactly what I needed after all the heavy politics and deep discussion of mind versus brain. The play goes out, literally, with a bang—a dazzling display of concert lights, a love reunited, and the Rolling Stones blaring. There is peace at last.
